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Product Assessment Checklist

The following Product Assessment Checklist helps product managers to determine whether goods are competitive, cost-efficient and developed according to their requirements. The checklist focuses on the three key points of product assessment: Specification, Costs and Competitiveness.

Overview. The specification of your product covers functions and features that the product should have in order to be successful. If the product doesn’t meet the specified functionality, then most likely it won’t satisfy customer needs and thereby will be unsuccessful. Answer the following questions to check your product against its specification.

What the product is supposed to do?

What are the benefits of the product?

Is the product provided with manuals and user guides describing the functions and features and how to use the product properly?

Who is it made for?

What are normal conditions for the product to operate and function?

Are there safety instructions labeled on the product packaging?

Is the product ergonomic and foolproof?

Is the product used properly by the consumer (end-user)?

Do you provide product maintenance to the consumer?

2. Costs.

Overview. Obviously there is some amount of financial resources you’ve spent on developing, manufacturing and selling your product. You must examine product costs and figure out if every dollar has been spent properly, without overheads and waste. Consider the following costs to investigate the product price.

Development costs.

Can you say your product has been developed within the targeted budget?

What are the costs of product prototyping and pilot testing?

Were tooling costs sufficient?

What are the costs of product certification?

Was there the need for product rework?

Production costs.

How much money has your company spent on paying wages and salaries to workers?

What are the costs of raw materials?

What taxes do you pay to produce the product?

What is the amount of the fixed costs?

What is the amount of the variable costs?

Selling price.

Can you say the product price covers the development and manufacturing costs?

What is the profit you gain from selling the product?

If you sell your product, can you say the profit you gain is sufficient for reinvesting?

3. Competitiveness.

Overview. The way you product is positioned, promoted and sold determines the level of product competitiveness. There are three key criteria for determining whether your product is competitive. Try to compare your product against the following measures.

Quality.

Is quality of your product sufficient, as compared to industry quality level?

Do you have a quality control and assurance system to manage product quality?

Do you test the product to ensure it can be used appropriately and without faults within the guarantee period?